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Tamas v. T.L. Pavlich Construction, Inc. (2013)

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While traveling down a suburban street in Los Angeles County, Joe Tamas swerved left toward the center of the road when his vehicle was sideswiped by another car. Tamas then veered further to the left, ultimately crashing into a motor grader parked in the median of the street where construction work was ongoing. Tamas sued the construction company, T.L. Pavlich Construction, Inc., for negligence. Tamas argued the motor grader was parked too close to the travel lanes on the street or a concrete barrier should have been erected between the grader and traffic.

The jury found that the construction company was not negligent. Tamas moved for a new trial, arguing jurors committed misconduct by bringing toy cars into the deliberation room to try to reenact the accident and evaluate what would have happened if the grader had not been parked where it was in the median. The trial court denied the motion, and Horvitz & Levy LLP represented T.L. Pavlich Construction, Inc. when Tamas appealed. The Court of Appeal (Second District, Division Seven) affirmed. The court held the jury’s use of the toy cars was not an impermissible jury experiment, and there was nothing wrong with using the toy cars to assist the jurors to visualize the accident and evaluate the liability theories presented by Tamas.